Table 2. --Travel time of red salmon from tagging site to recovery 

 at mouth of Russian River, 1957 



Dates 



Range of 

 days out 



June 1 - July 10 8-47 



July 11 - July 25 3-46 



July 26 - Aug. 10 14 - 30 



tagging site or for moving more slowly than 

 normal. 



The dates on which the peak of the migration 

 occurred at two well-separated trapping sites 

 provide another measure of the rate that 

 red salmon travel in the river. In 1959 two 

 fyke traps were fished at a location 18 miles 

 upstream from the index trap site. When the 

 graphs of catches for the two stations are 

 shifted 12 days they almost coincide (fig. 71, 

 indicating a migration rate of 1.5 miles per 

 day. The faster rate of travel between the 

 index site and Russian River as compared 

 with the rate between the index site and the 



Figure 7.- -Comparison of the catch of red salmon at 

 index trap site with the catch in traps 18 miles 

 upstream. (Upstream catch shifted 12 days to adjust 

 for salmon travel time between sites.) 



upstream site may reflect the approaching 

 sexual maturity of early-run Russian River 

 fish. 



Spawning Ground Destinations 



The tagging experiments each year provide 

 information about the destination of red salmon 

 passing the trapping site. 



In 1959 stream surveys were conducted on 

 all known clear-water spawning grounds to 

 recover tagged fish (table 3). The streams 

 were visited frequently to pinpoint the time 

 of arrival on the spawning grounds. 



In 1958 and 1959, tags were recovered 

 chiefly by fishing additional fyke traps at 

 upstream sites, and stream surveys were 

 not as thorough as in 1957. 



The first salmon to enter the Kenai River 

 passed the trap site in June and were destined 

 principally for the Russian River. However, 

 fish that were tagged during the height of the 

 run (July 10 through July 30) were recovered 

 on spawning grounds in all major tributaries. 



The tag recoveries are misleading in that 

 recovery effort was not equal in all parts of 

 the Kenai River system. The Russian River 

 is a clear-water stream and has an intensive 

 sport fishery. The other tributaries have 

 clear portions, but there are extensive areas 

 of the Kenai River system such as Skilak Lake 

 that are very turbid and for which little in- 

 formation about salmon spawning activity is 

 available. One might assume from the tag 



